


Roses

by qodarkness



Series: 69 Love Songs [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And a tiny bit of Smut, F/M, Grand Romantic Gestures, Magnetic Fields, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 08:16:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21267902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qodarkness/pseuds/qodarkness
Summary: Other Queens he had known had extravagant gestures from their grateful subjects, but things were different in the North.Sansa mostly got turnips. Or more generally, root vegetables. Which were extremely practical and Theon wasn’t ungrateful to the Northern bannermen, but there was little about a turnip that could be described as romantic.So other OTHER Queens got extravagant gestures, and his Queen in the North deserved one.





	Roses

Except for those moments when his old self doubts came to eat at him, Theon had cautiously decided that he was a good Lord of Winterfell. He was careful with his counsel, thought long and hard about problems brought to him and consulted widely before offering his advice. His decisions were acknowledged as just, the smallfolk brought their issues to him and did not go to Sansa behind his back, the men he trained as guards and fighting men were skilled and, on the whole, Winterfell hummed along happily and harmoniously beneath his watchful eye. He even, to his own great surprise, had learned to carefully manage the keep’s budget and was now proudly considered by his seneschal as a thrifty and wise manager of funds.

But.

It was shortly to be ten years since he had married Sansa and Theon had decided, suddenly and stubbornly, that he wanted to make a grand romantic gesture to acknowledge that.

Other Queens he had known had extravagant gestures from their grateful subjects, but things were different in the North. The most exciting and unusual thing he could remember Sansa getting from someone in the North was when Tormund had come down for a visit and brought a pile of arctic fox furs made into a shimmering silver cloak that set off Sansa’s hair to perfection and made Theon’s breath catch in his throat in adoring worship every time she wore it. Adoring worship and memory of the times it was cold at night and she would wear only the cloak and let him part it to reveal her pale glory, all just for him.

It was definitely an extremely fine and wonderful gesture, but other Queens got more.

Though maybe not Yara. Who mostly got dried fish.

Sansa mostly got turnips. Or more generally, root vegetables. Which were extremely practical and Theon wasn’t ungrateful to the Northern bannermen, but there was little about a turnip that could be described as romantic.

So other OTHER Queens got extravagant gestures, and his Queen in the North deserved one.

Theon had long since accepted that he was truly terrible at lying to Sansa. Even his gentlest fibs, designed to protect her from worrying about some peculiar Winterfell problem, barely lasted past the moment they left his lips. Sansa would simply arch a slightly sceptical brow at him and he would be babbling the real story a moment later. So when she asked him why there was a suddenly increased number of ravens flying between Winterfell and Highgarden, he told her as close to the truth as he could; that he thought they might be able to grow some different things in the greenhouse and he was seeking Willas Tyrell’s advice on the matter. Fortunately for Theon, Sansa was both busy and his correspondence with Willas tended to the voluminous anyway (as a fellow member of the Tyrion-dubbed Coalition of the Maimed), so he was able to get away without providing further detail.

Similarly, when she mildly remarked that he seemed to be writing to Yara a little more than usual, he told her that they were having some discussions around the disposition of some ships in the Iron Fleet, and breathed a sigh of relief when she accepted it and moved on to another subject.

Sensibly, when it came to the difficult parts of the plan, he delegated them to other people. It was the seneschal who organised that Queen Sansa visit the Last Hearth the week that the wheelhouses were expected to arrive in Winterfell. As was fairly usual, Theon stayed behind at Winterfell to keep everything running smoothly in the Queen’s absence and he was thus able to supervise when the precious cargo arrived, check that everything was safe and thriving and then arrange to have everything installed in the greenhouse. And when Sansa arrived back, only a couple of days before they celebrated the tenth year of their marriage, it was the gardener who let her know there’d been a fungal blight break out in the Glass Garden and they were keeping everyone away from it until they’d made sure they’d thoroughly cleaned it out and ensure no further breakouts would occur.

All of that relieved Theon of the burden of saying anything even slightly untrue to Sansa which was, quite frankly, a relief to everyone in on the secret plan.

As was usual, the celebration for their marriage day was a small one; anniversaries were not something generally celebrated in Westeros and Sansa and Theon’s tendency to do so was considered a personal peculiarity. But the household appreciated the fact that there was generally a small feast and Sansa would arrange that a bard would come along and sing and the evening would generally end with enough dancing to make everyone red and breathless with exercise and laughter and a reasonable amount of wine and ale.

It was towards the end of the evening that Maisie managed to catch Theon’s eye from where he was dancing with, currently, a smallholder’s wife and nodded. Despite the sudden dryness of his mouth and a small stumble, he managed to get through the rest of the dance without tripping over himself. Or anyone else.

A dance later, he and Sansa agreed it was time to let everyone go to bed and Sansa made a small speech thanking everyone for their work and for celebrating with them and then she and Theon withdrew, hands tightly clasped.

Sansa didn’t notice that the halls near their chambers were a little quieter than usual, probably ascribing it to the fact that nearly everyone had been at (or were still at) the feast. But Theon was grateful for the discretion of the household, who had been exceptionally good at keeping his secret.

He stopped Sansa for a moment at their door, before opening it, drawing her attention to him and away from the flickering light that showed beneath it. “I’ve told you how much I love you, haven’t I, Sansa?” he asked, his face earnest.

She laughed then, and her mouth ghosted over his for just a moment. “That you have, husband mine,” she replied. “Nearly as much as I love you,” she teased, until the hard press of his mouth on hers for a moment was enough to silence her. Behind her back, not letting go of her mouth, Theon reached out and opened the door.

As soon as the spill of flickering light appeared in the hallway, Sansa knew that this was not a normal situation. Turning, she gasped as she saw what Theon had organised for her.

There were more candles than usual flickering in the antechamber, but it wasn’t those that made Sansa gasp. The path she would take through the antechamber to the bedchamber was lined with deep bowls, full of red roses in bloom. She went to say something, but Theon touched his finger to her mouth, stopping her words as he led her though to the bedchamber.

It was lined with candles, the flickering light reflecting off further deep bowls full of roses that surrounded the bed. But it was the bed itself that made Sansa gasp again, her hand covering her mouth at the sight of the pale coverlet strewn with rose petals.

“Theon,” she whispered.

“I wanted to make you something wonderful, Sansa,” he responded, filled for a moment with worry that she would think it ridiculous or that he was wasteful and silly.

That doubt was wiped from his mind the instant she turned to him, her eyes luminous with unshed tears, her lower lip quivering. “Theon,” she said again, and then drew him to her, her lips whispering across his. “It is wonderful. The most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. Red roses! So many roses! In Winterfell! How did you do it?”

He smiled, a little sheepishly. “Willas helped,” he said. “They really do have the most amazing gardens and greenhouses, the Tyrells. They send rose bushes all over the south, so he thought it was a challenge to see if he could get them to the North in bloom.” Theon’s mouth quirked a little. “They all came up in special pots on an Ironborn ship, and then over in wheelhouses. We’ve been hiding them in the greenhouse since not long after you went to Last Hearth. Willas sent a gardener with them, and they kept the pots warmed specially and... well, you can imagine what Yara’s been telling me she thinks about the whole thing,” he finished. “But it worked.” His smile was a little bit proud. “I wanted you to have red roses, Sansa.”

“They are... I never would have thought... Oh, Theon, it’s beautiful and wonderful and mad! I can’t imagine...” she paused for a second. “How much did it cost, Theon?” Sansa asked.

He drew her close to him again. “You know those couple of ships I own in the Iron Fleet?” he asked.

Sansa nodded. Yara had granted Theon one trading longship back before they were even married as payment for his advice and he’d since purchased another with the profits from the first. “Don’t tell me you sold one of your ships?” she gasped.

“Both of them,” said Theon wryly.

“You sold both of your ships to bring me roses in Winterfell,” said Sansa. “Theon that’s... that’s mad and astonishing and you did that for me?”

His face turned serious, his voice the same. “I would sell everything I ever owned to make you happy for an hour’s span, Sansa Stark,” he said. “You’re my reason for living. The reason I’m alive.”

Her kiss in response was equally serious. But when she finally lifted her mouth from his, she was smiling mischievously. “Do you want me,” she asked, “to get the cloak?” and laughed at his eager nod.

In the aftermath, he sat cross-legged at the end of the bed, looking at her, curled up like a cat, almost purring in satiation, ivory skin and red hair against the luxurious silver fur, red rose petals dusting her skin and the fur and the bed alike. That sight alone, decided Theon, let alone what had come before, was worth every copper that he’d paid.

“You are extraordinarily beautiful, Queen Sansa,” he said.

“And happy,” she replied. ”Gloriously, extravagantly happy, Lord Theon. The only thing I wish...” she trailed off.

“What do you wish for?” prompted Theon.

“I wish there was some way of showing people how wonderful this was.” She tapped his chest lightly with her foot at his lascivious grin. “Not this bit!” she chided. “The petals on the bed and the roses and the candles and - imagine what all those southern lords and ladies would think if they saw what the cold Northern Queen had!”

“If I could show them that,” said Theon, and grasping her foot, he drew it up and planted a kiss upon the soft skin above her ankle, and then another kiss higher on her calf, starting to work his way up, “I wouldn’t start saving up my coin to buy another ship.” He pressed a kiss to the skin near the crease of her knee, drew his tongue across it until Sansa made a soft mewling sound. “I’d save my coin to buy one of Willas’s greenhouses.” His tongue teased its way up the long muscle of her inner thigh, the lightest nips of his teeth making Sansa gasp and twine her fingers through his hair. “Because that’s the way I would make my fortune.”

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned on Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin, I am doing my own personal challenge for NaNoWriMo - to try and write Theonsa stories based on the Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs - one for every day, based on the lyrics of a different song each day and taking its title from each song. Some are likely to be very short and they may be one shots or from Universes I have already got Theonsa stories inhabiting but I’m going to try and use my obsessive love of this relationship to stretch my writing muscles this month. 
> 
> This is a story in the Gifts universe and will be added to that as a chapter at some point, but for now it’s just a 69 Love Songs story :)
> 
> Lyrics to Roses are so short, I can just add them here: 
> 
> Buy more stock in roses  
Millionaires will always woo  
Don't be shocked if roses  
Make a millionaire of you


End file.
